Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a slew of housing affordability proposals Thursday morning, indicating that the issue will remain a major part of her 2025 agenda after being at the center of contentious legislative negotiations over the past two years.
Hochul’s priorities for the year include making it harder and less attractive for institutional investors like hedge funds and private equity firms to buy single-family and two-family homes. She hopes to require large investors to wait 75 days before making an offer on such properties and make the homes less lucrative from a tax perspective by banning investors from using programs such as interest and depreciation deductions.
Institutional investors buying homes has emerged as a major point of discussion around housing affordability in recent years. Although their actual impact on housing prices remains unclear, the governor played up this policy in particular in her statement announcing the proposals, saying that “shadowy private equity giants are buying up the housing supply in communities across New York, leaving everyday homebuyers with fewer and fewer affordable options.”
“The cost of living is just too damn high — especially when it comes to the sky-high rents and mortgages New Yorkers pay every month,” she said.
The governor also proposed using $50 million in state funds to incentivize building more starter homes and using $50 million to support New Yorkers trying to save up for down payments. Her 2025 plan includes a property tax incentive for homes built specifically to sell to low- or moderate-income New Yorkers that local governments could opt into and legislation to combat discrimination in home appraisals as well.
This marks the third year that housing has been a major part of Hochul’s agenda, although her 2025 proposals appear more focused on helping New Yorkers afford existing homes in the state rather than increasing the housing supply, which was her main goal in the past two years. She called on the state to build 800,000 homes over the next 10 years at the beginning of 2023 and proposed mandating housing production as a way to help make it happen. The idea proved to be extremely controversial, however, and no housing deal got done that year.
A housing package did make it through the Legislature as part of last year’s budget negotiations that focused on incentives rather than mandates. It included programs such as a replacement for the 421-a affordable housing tax break and a tax incentive for office-to-residential conversions.
But New York’s residential market remains extremely tight and competitive. Manhattan’s median rent rose yet again in December, to reach $4,334, for instance, according to the latest data from Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel. And more than 158,000 people in New York experienced homelessness in 2024, a 53.1% increase year over year, according to data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Mayor Eric Adams was expected to address housing affordability as well Thursday during his State of the City speech.
